Looking back: what surprises do Merkel’s memoirs hold?

A pragmatist with a lot to answer for

The Aargauer Zeitung say the book contains few surprises:

“The former chancellor stresses that she didn’t write her memoirs to justify her actions. Many Germans, however, now feel that Merkel owes them an explanation: whether it’s collapsing bridges, the run-down Bundeswehr, problems with the integration of refugees or a naive Russia policy, no one can claim that Germany is doing well after 16 years of Merkel. She, however, still believes that her migration policy was right, or in her words ‘without an alternative’. And she refuses to believe that by pursuing this policy she promoted the rise of the AfD. … Even in retirement, Angela Merkel remains a pragmatist of power.”

A disastrous energy policy

Onet.pl is infuriated by Merkel’s justifications regarding the Nord Stream pipeline:

“Today she keeps repeating that Poland and Ukraine did not object to gas transit through their countries as long as they made a profit from it. This is the most twisted argument. As long as the transits went through Poland and Ukraine, Russia had to stay on the good side of these countries. Not only economically, but above all politically! When Russia, together with Germany, cynically decided to bypass Poland and the beleaguered (especially after 2014!) Ukraine, these countries lost any influence they had over Russia. Cheaper gas was more important than the security of the Polish and Ukrainian allies. The result is that now we have neither cheap gas nor security.”

Rarely asked for advice

Martin Jonáš, Germany expert at Seznam Zprávy, predicts that things will go rather quiet around Merkel after the book launch:

“Overall, the memoirs sound above all like an attempt to shore up the crumbling façade of her political legacy. That legacy suffers from the unfortunate consequences of her Russia and refugee policy, the increasing dependence on China and a reluctance to implement reforms that the German economy would have needed for the 21st century. Once Merkel has finished her book tour the former global leader will retire to the seclusion of her flat on the banks of the Spree. She rarely gives advice to her successors. Partly because she is rarely asked for it.”

The story of her two lives

Merkel is an important witness of how things were in Germany before the fall of the Berlin Wall, historian Timothy Garton Ash explains in La Repubblica:

“Angela Merkel was the first and last East German at the helm of the reunified Germany, the key power in Europe. There may be future chancellors from the regions that once formed the German Democratic Republic (GDR), but none of them will be marked by the experience of having lived in East Germany. This, rather than the revelations about the key decisions she made in her role as chancellor during 16 extraordinary years, is the really interesting element of Merkel’s memoir, titled Freedom. She calls it ‘the story of my two lives’, and the question is how the first life influenced the second.”

Moderation and the middle way

El País is starting to miss the former chancellor:

“Since her departure, Europe has been running around like a headless chicken. … Divided, disoriented, worried about a Russian attack. … Merkel left knowing that she was leaving her friend Ursula von der Leyen at the helm of the European Commission, having noted her efficiency as a minister. … Now von der Leyen’s Commission is much further to the right and is courting the Italian prime minister. … What does Merkel think of this transformation? Can one really cooperate with the darkest forces on the continent? Perhaps we will miss the discreet and not at all arrogant Angela Merkel. … She always defined her approach as ‘a policy of moderation and the middle way’. Middle way, not far right.”

Even Mutti had her limitations

Things have changed since the end of the Cold War and old decisions must be reappraised, Jyllands-Posten comments:

“In the new era it has become clear that Merkel’s pragmatism was also her weakness. Not enough thought was given to future-proofing prosperity, necessary and difficult choices were not taken for the military defence of all that had been achieved, and the view of the West’s opponents, such as Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, was often unforgivably naive. So it’s only right and proper that we are now having an honest conversation about Mutti and her virtues and shortcomings. It is the high standards that Merkel has set for the chancellorship that make her successor Olaf Scholz look like an insubstantial lightweight.”